Aircraft Carrier Admiral Kuznetsov: News #2

The only shipyard likely to build CVNs will be Zvezda in the far east not the northern fleet.

It has been mentioned in a few publications that Sevmash would likely be a candidate to start building the new carriers?

https://english.pravda.ru/russia/137140-russia_aircraft_carrier/

A RNoAF photo to remind us how good she looked in earlier times.

Yes, but they will need anyway a large drydock in the north as well for maintenance and overhaul and modernisation of this carrier and of the future carriers as well. Furthermore it can be used also for heavy cruisers and other ships.

True, but suggesting this might be sabotage is amusing... it would be like a big car company with one of the few car lifts able to lift a Humvee deliberately drops it and damages the lift beyond repair and damages the Humvee in potentially unknown ways in the hopes to get a new car lift and future contracts with the Humvee owner...

The Kuznetsov is a Northern Fleet carrier... the mainenance and support contracts just make sense to go to the Northern Fleet shipyards where they can undertake the work... sinking your only floating dry dock on purpose with the damn carrier on board is the dumbest thing they could do... it makes them look bad... it costs them a dry dock that was still working if at the end of its life... and it poses serious risk to the platform they want the contract to maintain... what if the Kuznetsov have rolled and gone into the water upside down... the risks would be enormous with no obvious pay off.

There is zero chance it was sabotage by the shipyard... some western spy flipping a switch or something can't be ruled out, but institutional sabotage is very very unlikely... especially when incompetence completely explains the situation already.

The future suggests lots of much bigger ships will be built... ie civilian ships mostly, so capacity to work on such enormous ships or smaller ships in larger numbers will become important as the Russian navy expands and the number of ships they operate increase.

It's not like Zvezda can do at the same time the overhaul and repair and the build of new ships in the same docks, and furthermore it's not practical to transfer ships all the time between fleets for maintenance ( and the capacity is also not there). Possibly the large floating drydock built in Japan in 80s could be used, but its conditions are probably not much better than PD50 before it sunk.

I would think having large capacity dry docks in both the Northern Fleet and the Pacific Fleet ship yards would be a very beneficial and useful thing... and as the number of active ships in the Russian Navy increases it will become more beneficial and more useful over time.

It has been mentioned in a few publications that Sevmash would likely be a candidate to start building the new carriers?

I would expect they would start building new carriers when they have enough new Frigates and Corvettes in service as well as Destroyers in production too... there is no point in finding yourself in the same position as the British where they have 6 new destroyers and two aircraft carriers and not much else and have to form up coalitions of carrier groups to operate beyond UK waters... leaving nothing much left to operate in home waters if something happens to sail past...

Obviously they control their media with an iron fist so this debacle is not as critical as it would be if they had anything like a free press...

JohninMK wrote:A RNoAF photo to remind us how good she looked in earlier times.

For all the stupid BS aimed at the Kuz by the HATO trolls, I've seen very few pics that show her in anything other than a fairly good condition. Nothing any worse than a little surface rust and discoloured paint due to weather. She may have had propulsion issues due to clapped out (Ukrainian) boilers but she isn't exactly a rusty hulk listing at 15 degrees while run around and abandoned in an isolated cove north of the Arctic circle....

Big_Gazza wrote:For all the stupid BS aimed at the Kuz by the HATO trolls, I've seen very few pics that show her in anything other than a fairly good condition.  Nothing any worse than a little surface rust and discoloured paint due to weather.  She may have had propulsion issues due to clapped out (Ukrainian) boilers but she isn't exactly a rusty hulk listing at 15 degrees while run around and abandoned in an isolated cove north of the Arctic circle....

From what I understand the boilers themselves are fine in design. The Chinese also got them with their carrier and I think a similar boiler design is used in the Sovremennys. The problem is them Russian Navy sailors in the bad days kept using salt water direct from the ocean instead of using distilled fresh water on the boiler as per design.

No its like a shipyard wants to entrench itself as the center of large ship overhaul in the region. An aging floating dock does not do that.

It is the shipyard they were already using for the work.... having a floating dock sink is hardly going to do them any favours at all.

It could have, if it was an accident.

It would not make sense for them to do this on purpose... it would just be fucking stupid to sink a ship they are supposed to be working on in the only dry dock they had they could use for the work.

How do you get to zero chance when the shipyard has gained enormously from the incident?

Gained what?

It already had the job of working on the ship, now it has a black mark against its name and is behind on that work.

I would actually respect them more for sabotage.

Then you are a fool. Accidents happen but the corruption level for sabotage is criminal.

It is better they made a mistake than to be criminally insane.

Incompetence of this level would IMHO disqualify them from any major work.

They are a northern fleet shipyard.... the Kuznetsov operates in the Northern Fleet... the alternative to them doing the work is a 6,000km trip to the far east... it was work they were always going to get except if the dry docks keep sinking because of incompetence...

So in this scenario, what would be better for them, an old aging floating dock or a spanking new world class drydock funded by the govt?

Are you mad? If they wanted a new dry dock they could have sunk it just after the took the Kuznetsov off it and not risked their sole remaining aircraft carrier... if this was planned then everyone should be not only fired but put in jail.

And you do understand a dry dock is just a place to repair a ship on... world class new ones, old worn out ones... as long as they work there is not much difference involved when it comes to the work we are talking about.

From what I understand the boilers themselves are fine in design. The Chinese also got them with their carrier and I think a similar boiler design is used in the Sovremennys. The problem is them Russian Navy sailors in the bad days kept using salt water direct from the ocean instead of using distilled fresh water on the boiler as per design.

Well it shouldn't be a problem now because half were replaced before she went to Syria and the other half have now been replaced so all are essentially brand new and essentially being "run in".

Sailing 6000 km for work on a carrier is not an issue.

The whole point of having an aircraft carrier is being able to use it.

Moving at perhaps 12 knots it would take weeks to move it 6,000km weather permitting and weeks to send her back... weeks turn to months... and for what... because you are too cheap to buy a dry dock big enough?

The entire US carrier fleet is serviced by a single shipyard and its is BY FAR the most insanely large carrier fleet in the world.

The thing is that they have more than one carrier so when one or even three carriers go to be serviced there are other carriers that can fill their shoes and do what they were doing... even if the work is unexpected repairs rather than scheduled maintenance that was planned 2 years ago.

The shipyard probably told the govt the dock was in disrepair, so it would not be blamed for its sinking.

If the Shipyard didn't think the drydock was safe then they should not have put the Kuznetsov on it in the first place.

Planned accidents happen quite often for gains in all contracts.

If you actually have proof please show it... otherwise it is baseless accusation.

One would question why this ship was not more secured to the dock and just floated freely away.

Because when the work is done the idea is that you sink the dock and the ship is supposed to float freely away... and not have cranes fall on them...

Now this shipyard has the best, newest large dock in Russia an is in prime postion to bid on all large ship work.

It is the Northern fleet where half their biggest ships and vessels are based... it was not like they were going to sail them to the Black Sea to get fixed.

Now this shipyard has the best, newest large dock in Russia an is in prime postion to bid on all large ship work.

It is a dry dock, not a super computer... it lifts ships out of the water so they can do work on their propellers and bits and pieces... the difference between the new dry dock being built and the old one is probably exactly bugger all, but the black stain of incompetence that led to them having it sink wont go away for a while and will likely be brought up by any shipyard in any competition for a new contract in the future.

They should build more of these but how about adding a few heavy duty cranes on the sides to turn this dry dock into duel role construction and repair yard?

Five years old but a pretty good background article. Published pre reaching Syria.

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/5700/russias-carrier-was-designed-to-be-heavily-armed-even-without-its-air-wing

Russia can't repair the aircraft carrier

Wow, now thats a really authoritative source there
Some guy on twitter with the name of a Hong Kong pop singer quoted in a Eurotrash Military contractor Press release aggregator site.

That said its probably true: They can't repair it.
Yet.

Anyone with Google could have noticed that the Drydock they need to complete the repair isn't finished being rebuilt -> repair can't be completed yet.

Edit: or more to the point, read it on Tass https://tass.ru/armiya-i-opk/12867191

MOSCOW, November 9. / TASS /. The heavy aircraft-carrying cruiser of project 1143.5 "Admiral Kuznetsov" is planned to be delivered to the modernized dry dock of the 35th SRZ branch of the Zvezdochka ship repair center in June next year. At the same time, the delivery date of the ship will be shifted to 2023. This was reported to TASS by a source in the military-industrial complex.

"The docking of the cruiser Admiral Kuznetsov will take place in June next year. The ship will stand on the slipway of the new dock for staging the propeller-rudder group and hull work. Its repairs will be completed in the summer of 2023, and at the end of the same year the aircraft carrier will be handed over to the fleet," the source said. agencies.

According to him, the updated dock is capable of accepting the cruiser by the end of this year. "However, this technological procedure is safer to carry out in stable weather, in warm and light times," he added.

Who is Louis Cheung_hk and why should we believe him?

Equally... who cares... what is one extra year... it is going to take time for them to get escort ships ready to sail around teh place with her while she is testing all the new stuff so even if she was handed over now we would still have to wait.... I am sure the crew would need a bit of refresher training on what they did before and what has now changed...

Photo was taken yesterday during the hadover ceremony of the icebreaker SiBIR.

Mir wrote:They should build more of these but how about adding a few heavy duty cranes on the sides to turn this dry dock into duel role construction and repair yard?

How so? Will not that be for both?